UNION TWP. – When contractors rip up asphalt paving, concrete curbs, sidewalks and such, where does the stuff go? What happens to the branches, logs and stumps tree trimmers and landscapers have to get rid of?

The materials in most cases are recycled, and there’s another option in this region: the Brian Plushanski family’s GreenRock Recycling and Shale Pit.

It can be hot, dirty and dusty work but that didn’t stop son Mike from joining the operation after getting his college degree in finance. He’s now general manger and his brother, Brian, also works at Green Rock. Rich Brunner is site manager.

The business started out as GreenCycle, but then they got a “cease and desist” letter from an attorney in Illinois stating that his client was already using the name. So Michelle, the wife of Brian the father, came up with GreenRock, which he explained combines the obvious: that they are “green” by recycling and they’re in the rock business because they also quarry and sell shale on the 18-acre property. It’s on Rupell Road just west of Clinton.

It’s one of four shale pits that had been in the area, right next to the still-existing Red Hills shale. They’re both on the south side of Route 78; on the north side Dick Mannon’s father once dug shale where Powerco equipment is now, and another man had a pit nearby.

The main business of Brian Plushanski, who lives in Bethlehem Township, is the construction company bearing his name. It does roads, parking lots, septic systems, drainage piping and other site work.

He’s the son of Fred Plushanski, a retired farmer who also had a jug milk and convenience store on Route 31 in the 1970s and became famous for battling the state over how much he had to charge for milk.

Growing up on the farm, Brian “learned how to use equipment” and realized later there’s “not a whole lot of difference” between farm and construction machinery.

His construction company thrived for years, he said, until the Highlands Act cut development in the area, and then the recession came along. So he bought the shale pit, which hadn’t been operated in around 25 years, and began quarrying again.

He decided later to open the recycling facility on the same property. After a lengthy process, it received all the required county and state approvals to accept wood, brick, concrete, block and asphalt. They won’t take pallets, Brian explained, because they don’t want any pallet nails in the mulch they make, so people don’t get cut.

Root much is made from double-ground and the finer triple-ground stumps, logs and brush. And the dyed mulch, available black or brown, is from only logs and branches — no stumps or the dirt around them. The material “is uniform in size so the product is uniform in color,” Mike explained.

The mulch part of the business is very busy in the spring, when all the landscapers come in. It tapers off when they’re done with that and switch to lawn mowing for clients, then there’s “a little spurt” again in the fall, Brian noted.

The customers who buy mulch, shale, stone or topsoil from GreenRock are generally “a local market,” Mike said, while the people bringing in concrete, blacktop and wood to recycle “are all along the Route 78 corridor.”

Plushanski Construction years ago began crushing rock and concrete on job sites and using the crushed material. That led the family to start the separate business. One product they make is recycled concrete aggregate (RCA), which some customers use as a parking lot base or trench backfill.

The Plushanski businesses have supported various community projects for years. This spring, three Cut Scout groups came in to tour GreenRock. Union Township Boy Scouts had a fundraiser based on mulch sales. And fire departments have drills there, arranged by Mike, a member of the Pattenburg volunteer company.